Foster Brandonburg

VPI class of 88 | husband, father, grandpap | proud 🇮🇱 | concealed carrier | always down for a banquet | #LANK #WANGHAF

[Foster Brandonburg @foster_branon]

1st day of class, 15 min late, middle of the pack. #WANGHAF @coachjfranklin @HokiesFB

[Ellen Carmichael @ellencarmichael]

The most interesting part of the red card saga isn't the ruling. It's how differently Americans and Europeans process the idea that they might have been wronged.

Europeans are fundamentally different from Americans in one particular way: they expect life to be aggravating and at times unfair. It's just a fact of moving through the world. I joke that in Europe, the customer is always wrong. You didn't read the fine print. The only pharmacy in town is closed every other Tuesday for three hours, and even if the times weren't posted, that's still your problem. Too bad if you want the bill, because the waiter's on his union-mandated half-hour smoke break, and you're just going to have to wait.

To quote the great Mark Knopfler: sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. There's something freeing in that. Things are less in your control, so there's less angst in managing your expectations.

In America, things couldn't be more different. We simply can't accept a wrong left unrighted.

The flight attendant sneezed handing you a drink on your one-hour flight? 15,000 frequent flyer miles. Didn't like your appetizer? A replacement is on the way, and the whole course comes off the bill. There's a reason our interstates are lined with trial lawyer billboards.

Europeans have turned complaining into a continental pastime with no expectation that the universe owes them a remedy for their grief. You gripe about the train being late, your friends nod solemnly and everyone goes back to their apéro. In America, we launch a full-blown investigation of the train system, sue the government (and its contractors) that allowed for the tardiness and hold a Congressional hearing on the state of national infrastructure.

So to an objective observer, the red card shouldn't have happened, and VAR was a travesty. To Americans, our star player shouldn't be unfairly banned from a match we couldn't afford to lose for a card he so obviously didn't deserve.

Who cares that FIFA used a little-used reversal to fix it. Who cares that other people are mad about it. We. Were. Wronged. It was unjust. It must be corrected. We would accept nothing less.

Europeans waxing poetic about the sanctity of the game are, of course, talking about a governing body whose last tournament host was decided via confirmed cash bribes — one that imposed dress codes on women, shrugged off widespread allegations of modern slavery and reconfigured the entire tournament calendar to suit the host country. Which is exactly the point. If you've made peace with all of that, at least enough to watch the tournament four years later, a probationary suspension isn't actually a scandal.

Maybe that's the real divide. Over millennia, Europeans have made peace with being the bug. Americans have never once considered it, and apparently, we're not about to start now.

[Foster Brandonburg @foster_branon]

@scroopula @petehalvorsen @FrancoPanizo It literally says “normal speed should be used for the intensity of on offense.” can you even read??

[Jon Root @JonnyRoot_]

Raphael Claus needs to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.

This man is an enemy to the United States of America.

[Foster Brandonburg @foster_branon]

Prob from all the dick he sucks

[M İ R A @Miranizimmm]

Fransa takımının Süper Starı Kylian Mbappe'nin İsveç maçında yüzündeki görüntü İngilizler tarafından sosyal medyada gündem oldu

Bu sivilcelerin neden olduğunu biliyorsunuz dimi

[Foster Brandonburg @foster_branon]

After everything Bosnia has done with not even a yellow given and then two players both playing the ball is a red?? Can we be so for real right now

[FOX Sports @FOXSports]

This play is being reviewed for a potential red card against the US